Archive for the ‘Governance’ Category

“Honduras is set to play SimCity for real, albeit without the economist who devised the rules of the game. Last Tuesday, the government signed an agreement with private investors led by Michael Strong–a libertarian entrepreneur and close associate of Whole Foods co-founder and CEO John Mackey–to construct a city-from-scratch in one of at least three special development regions (“las Regiones Especiales de Desarrollo” or “REDs”) scattered around the country.”

AN : the article is a backgrounder in the attempt to set up a novel solution to expedite economic development at an country level via establishing a “govenance within a governance structure ” model ….. starting in Honduras.

Like this:

“Of all the governing styles in the world, does one country stand out as more successful than the others?

The debate over the best form of government has been raging ever since the days of Plato and Aristotle. Nevertheless, empirical studies about how government actions affect citizens have only been conducted in the last few decades. Probably the most ambitious attempt to evaluate the world’s governments comprehensively is being carried out by the Bertelsmann Stiftung in Germany.”

AN : what a superb question ! This comes from a four part series of articles in the well known German publication Der Spiegel….which, incidently , means “The Mirror “. The question is something to reflect upon 🙂

“The Austro-Hungarian Empire did not collapse in 1918 because it failed to cultivate new ideas or nurture personal freedom. It was filled with expressive, entrepreneurial, and free-thinking groups. The problem was that the Habsburg political system, which for three centuries had held diverse groups together, generated remarkable wealth, and defeated foreign tyrants (notably Napoleon), failed to adjust to new demands for national independence and democratic participation. Franz-Josef served as Emperor for more than sixty years before his death in 1916, as a pious, hard-working, and fair-minded political leader. He even encouraged equality for Jews at a time of rising anti-Semitism throughout Europe. Nonetheless, the system of imperial monarchy that he directed failed to address the growing demands for independence, development, and wealth redistribution throughout his lands. Despite his efforts, he was a prisoner of a stagnant and outdated set of political institutions.

Even with the best of leaders and institutions, large societies cannot prosper if they cannot adjust to change. At the same time that the cosmopolitan city of Vienna entered a terminal crisis in 1914, much more provincial cities like Chicago, Detroit, Milwaukee, and Cleveland led a rapid growth in American wealth and power behind their flexible political systems of governance.”

“When the SpaceX Dragon Capsule touched down last week in the Pacific Ocean after its successful unmanned mission to the International Space Station, it brought back with it from near orbit an increasingly undeniable truth: governments are losing their monopoly over managing certain complex tasks.

Indeed, as access to information increases and the cost of collaboration decreases, so too does our dependency on governments to manage complexity.As a result, a newly empowered civil society is reclaiming its rightful place between governments and free markets as a viable alternative that is capable of solving big problems. Through the use of crowdsourcing – fueled by general good will along with well-designed economic incentives – societies can now tap previously inaccessible creative potential of the masses. By shortening the distance between our collective intentions and our collective will, the message we send to governments is: The people have finally arrived

Projects like the SpaceX Dragon Capsule demonstrate, however, that governments need not disappear, but instead need to transform themselves in certain instances from service providers to service enablers. In the areas where governments do continue to act as service providers, they can take advantage of crowdsourcing to improve the quality of services they deliver.”

AN : The role of government does not have to be an either (only the gov’t) / or (not the gov’t) but rather you ( delegation to other sector ) / we ( partner with gov’t).

The role of collaboration and crowdsourcing is gathering momentum and value in our governance practises.

“People don’t realize what a huge financial crisis cities are in, and that they need to come up with new ways to get by in the next decade,” says Pahlka. Beyond the immediate effects this can have on the lives of residents, dissatisfaction with city governance can sour them on the entire civic process. “It ties back to citizens’ expectations and interactions with government,” she says. “On a day to day level, citizens are interacting with their cities.”

Serving citizens and improving civic engagement are core goals for Code for America. “Early on, we settled on three major things we were trying to do: openness and transparency, engagement, and efficiency,” she says. “There are a lot of efficiencies to be gained in the government, but we’re most interested in opportunities where we are opening it up to the citizens and doing all three.” Perhaps most crucially, the organization requires that all web applications their Fellows develop for pilot cities can be deployed by other cash-strapped municipalities.

Code for America chooses a limited number of cities from a set of applicants each year to target its efforts. Once chosen, the non-profit dispatches teams of Code for America Fellows—volunteer software engineers, designers, community organizers and more who pledge a year to the program—to work with city managers and citizens to identify web-based solutions to the cities’ needs.

“We’re looking for cities where there’s enough political will and broad support for trying different things,” Pahlka says. “It’s not hard to find a city where there’s one or two people interested in a new approach, but it’s harder to find cities where that appetite for change is more broad-based.”

Better reporting by companies will help avert systemic risks such as climate change and the banking crisis, according to Mervyn King.

“The annual financial statement as we have known it is no longer fit for purpose,” the former South African Supreme Court judge told Environmental Finance, at the launch of a discussion paper on Integrated Reporting – a global initiative to improve corporate reporting.

The Integrated Reporting initiative will ask companies to reveal “more comprehensive and meaningful information” about themselves. In particular, it aims to demonstrate how a company’s financial performance is achieved in the social, environmental and economic context within which it operates.

Transparency about the impact of a company’s operations will not only help investors make better judgments, but help businesses perform better, King said.

The role that governance plays in our organizations , Institutions and Governments is under estimated Not only should there be benefial rules but also well defined roles of the representative leadership of the members and stakeholders. In the current case of the US debt ceiling negotioations this model of governance is being put to a key test of its efficiency and effectiveness of its leadership, neotiatiating and decision making abilities.

“The idea of a brief U.S. default, sometimes called a technical default, has been growing among some members of the Republican Party, who believe it would be an acceptable price to pay if it forces the White House to deal with runaway spending.

“Even a so-called ’technical default’ would suggest a crisis of ’governance’from a sovereign credit and rating perspective,” Fitch said in a statement.” ”